[ Woman humming ] -Sky Woman carried us here from the Sky World clutched in her hands.

She sang seed songs and danced as she created the earth on the turtle's back.

We are Kanenon:we, the original seeds.

We carry the teachings of the universe inside of us.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -You know, as we have our seeds here, our seeds are listening to all the songs we're singing, the good words we're saying, the prayers that we put forward into the fire.

Our ancestors made promises and agreements to those seeds that we would take care of them and those seeds would take care of us.

Those seeds want to know your face again.

They want to know your songs again.

They want to know your voice and your language again.

-[ Singing in global language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -For the last 25 years, I've been involved in food sovereignty in indigenous communities, and I've seen a resurgence of incredible indigenous women who are taking the lead and healing their community's relationship to the land.

-The seeds have really changed our lives.

I was an attorney for my tribe and I thought, that's what I'm gonna do.

And I think that it really helped pull me into a different direction, reset our priorities.

We sold our home.

We bought this land.

We built this house here.

And we started to garden.

We pulled our kids out of school to homeschool them.

My husband left his job.

All so that we could build our home and our lives around our seeds.

♪♪ -We were often hidden away and carried by our relatives when they were forcibly removed from their territories.

Many Oneida people were removed from their Haudenosaunee homelands.

They were disconnected from their people, culture, and land.

♪♪ -Our people carried over a number of seeds when we were removed here to Wisconsin.

♪♪ On that journey, these are seeds that they could have eaten because you know they were hungry.

We came here in the wintertime and fortunately our people kept enough of those seeds to plant in the spring.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Is that good?

-Yep.

-Our goals are to help our community be able to get more confident with how to use our indigenous foods.

We had people come and help on the house, and we would give people corn as a way to recognize their help for building this house.

And I remember one man that we gave corn to, he looked at it and he said, "I don't know what to do with this."

When we save our seed, we put them flowers on the top so that we know that those are specifically meant to be kept for seed.

When we're taking seed off of a cob, we put our hand around the middle and that's where we take the seed from for the next generation.

I didn't know all of these things that our great-grandparents knew.

A lot of it was from removal, from the boarding schools, from the shame that came from that.

So we've just been listening to what these seeds are trying to tell us.

Thankfully, we have a lot of mentors out east that we go visit and we rely on them for information, we rely on them for seeds.

Quite a few of our varieties Angela has given to us and we're growing them out and sharing them with our community.

-Welcome, everybody, to the Onondaga Nation Farm.

There was a group of what, five of us in the beginning, right, Lea?

That started up Braiding the Sacred.

It's just a grassroots group of people that are all native corn growers.

And we just start making connections to learn from each other, share seeds and travel to each other's community to help plant, weed, harvest.

I'll let Lea talk a little bit about something that we're working on right now with, uh, the Diné people.

-We've been working with them now for six months, and we probably won't actually do the rematriation event until next year.

The seeds are not intended to live here forever.

We wanna make sure all of these seeds make it back to their people.

-So when every single one of these hooks, racks, everything is full of food in this room, that's enough for two years of food for the Onondaga Nation.

This all has to get labeled today.

I didn't even know how many there is.

So we gotta -- We're gonna work on that.

That's what we're trying to work on right now while we got everybody here.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations, laughter ] -Here we are safe from the big chemical companies who seek to alter or destroy us.

Their ancestors faced many hardships so that we could be here today.

♪♪ They referred to George Washington as Ranatakariaks, the town destroyer.

He sent a massive army to destroy the Haudenosaunee through scorched earth warfare.

The soldiers, they came to the villages with torches.

We were burnt to ash.

It was horrific.

♪♪ -It's something that what we call a historical trauma.

We carry the hurt, the memory in our DNA, what was experienced at that time.

They knew that the strength of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was their food.

What must that have been like for our ancestors to witness?

They've held ceremony, they've danced, they sang, then just to watch it all go up in flames.

♪♪ ♪♪ Our seed collection that we have here belonged to a corn farmer from Oklahoma named Carl Barnes.

There's over 4,000 varieties of indigenous corn in there.

It was very stressful to carry that collection.

He was repeatedly being approached by seed companies and offered money in the millions of dollars for the collection.

And he would refuse to sell it every time.

"No, it doesn't belong to me.

It belongs to the world."

There was some long-lost Haudenosaunee seeds in there, and I just, oh, my gosh, I was holding them to my forehead.

Like nobody has these, nobody in the whole Confederacy.

So all of that would've been lost.

♪♪ Rematriation of seeds is so important because those seeds are the imprint and the survival of your ancestors.

The first year, 2015, when we started, we had three, only three kinds of corn.

Then we had this many, and each year the box gets bigger.

-Women are such strong workers.

-But they didn't think we could make a success out of this.

I look at some of those seeds because I feel like they need to go with their people.

They need to be back in their hands.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -So let's go check that out, because it happened so fast.

It was boiling already?

-So we're gonna go out there later, um, in a bit and pick some of that squash.

We're gonna cut that squash open, dig the seeds out.

Then we're gonna make some kanastóhale with some corn that we grew here last year, Mohawk red flour corn, and some beans that we grew here, which is a combination I think there's some skunk beans, there's some penny hill beans.

-I really wanna say thank you to Steve and Becky for having the great big leap of faith.

I'm very thankful and I'm very grateful to be part of that.

It's knowledge that has gotten lost, but we're bringing back.

That's what we're doing.

-All right, so that's got to cook for quite a while.

-So you guys will get your -- -Let's get our Menominee squash.

-Squash!

-I want it to be where my daughters and grandchildren and that generation in our community isn't gonna have to try so hard... ...to reclaim what they took from us.

I'm so grateful for these seeds.

♪♪ -Indigenous peoples are 5% of the world's population.

They inhabit about a quarter of the surface of the globe.

But inside of those indigenous communities is 80% of the planet's remaining biodiversity.

That indigenous land and seed stewardship are these enclaves of cultural and climate sanity.

♪♪ -Let's go get our tools, so we have tools.

I pay close attention to all of these non-indigenous farmers and what they're doing.

Years ago when I first came here, he did save seeds and then he got into a contract with one of the big seed companies and he wasn't allowed to do it after that.

Every year their -- their fate is determined by somebody else.

It's like, "That is terrifying."

I can't even relate to that.

There are so many challenges to keeping our seeds, what some people call pure or heirloom.

♪♪ ♪♪ One of the main struggles for all indigenous farmers is how do we protect our open pollinated foods?

I always tell everyone, you should know every farmer within the six-mile radius that corn pollen flies.

And you should know what they're doing.

The corn that they plant, the pollen can contaminate our heirloom seeds here.

-Genetically modified seeds are ones of dependence.

You can't save those seeds from generation to generation.

So you're always reliant upon those corporations and those companies to go back and buy those seeds again and again and again.

So it actually disrupts that sovereignty that we have.

♪♪ They also breed them so that they're resistant to certain chemicals and fertilizers.

The biggest issue is that a lot of those seeds are heavily dependent upon chemicals that poison the earth and poison our bodies.

♪♪ -Our ancestral seeds, our relatives here have their own ability to adapt to climate change.

I'm gonna label all these seeds drought resistant 'cause there was so little rain.

You know, instead of building great big stalks and great big leaves, they put all their effort into making sure that we had food.

So even in the hard climates and the hard times, these are the survivors.

-What we see with climate change is that it's not just global warming.

We're seeing longer droughts.

We're seeing heavier rainstorms.

Our original seeds that have been growing in this region for generation after generation after generation, because of that diversity, there's always some of the plants that will do well no matter what.

They are on the front lines of that climate change, so to speak.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -All of the seeds have been grown by Carl Barnes or Dianna Henry who were involved in, um, really preserving all of these different seed varieties.

And I happened to open that one and I saw the little note and it said, "Catawba sweet corn."

And I was like, "Oh!

I know some Catawbas and they're growing corn!"

Um, this is our highest priority, is to rematriate this corn.

This is what we consider the red level corn because it's endangered.

-Mm-hmm.

-You're starting out at a disadvantage and your corn is really old.

It was grown in 1988.

So here you go.

-It's a big responsibility.

-That's so exciting and so terrifying.

-Yeah.

-[ Laughter ] -Thank you so much.

-Yeah, thank you.

-We're very appreciative and we're looking forward to grow this out.

♪♪ -There are many of our seed relatives that have been lost forever.

We hope that we will survive.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -Yeah.

That was really -- That was a really, really fun time.

-We're really grateful to those people that did hold onto those seeds because it's because of their work that we're able to grow them today.

And so you can see right away the difference in the seeds, what they look like.

-Oh, and these are the same?

-These are the same.

The other ones are real little.

-Yeah.

So all the Oneida Hubbards are there, the Menominee squash and the Buffalo Creeks.

Just looking at the seed, you can't tell what kind of squash it's from.

It's important to have really thorough record keeping.

Because you think you're gonna remember and you won't.

-Even in a year, right?

-Every year.

We talk about how modern science oftentimes reconfirms what we've already known.

And they've done studies in New Zealand and Canada and Australia and the United States, and they took indigenous people and put them back on their indigenous diets.

-We're helping to reintroduce these flavors to the kids, get these flavors back into the people.

-We lowered obesity, we lowered heart disease, we lowered our diabetes.

And so it's pretty clear the health benefits and not only just the health benefits, but I think, like, the spiritual benefits and the cultural benefits of being able to reconnect to our foods.

-There's just something about it that is, I don't wanna say it's magical, but it's -- it's magical.

-We formed the co-op Ohe Láku, which means among the cornstalks, and we grow about six acres of corn together each year.

And we plant together, we weed the gardens together, we harvest together, and then we also eat our food together.

-It's so pretty out here.

-It is, to be out in the fields.

-We recognized how fragile our food system is.

This is about empowering our people to be able to reclaim the processing and growing of our indigenous foods.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -Push this closer.

You girls help us with this squash.

We're gonna fill 'em up with maple syrup and then we're gonna just set 'em on the coals over there.

Our food was never meant to be in that capitalistic society and neither were our people.

So it's difficult and that's why our young people struggle because they don't know where's their place.

Just like the corn.

Yep.

Give it a stir.

There you go.

Good.

Oh, my gosh.

That mush is fantastic.

It looks like a masterpiece.

Mm-hmm.

-That white corn?

-No, that's blue corn with black caps, strawberries and maple syrup.

I think that's part of our healing through the foods is sharing, sharing the seeds, sharing the knowledge.

Are you ready?

Get closer to me.

We wanna help bring it back to the forefront.

And if we don't do that, we're not gonna survive.

We were told that in all of our teachings.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Wow.

Look at the Mohawk red corn.

-So this, we just finished right around the new year.

Me and my dad built the cabinets.

The coolest part, I think, is that there's no money in here at all.

You can't buy anything.

It's all for trade.

-All barter, just like the old days.

-Yep.

We finally have grown enough beans to share with people to eat.

-This is stunning.

We need one of these in every community, in every home.

Wow.

-And it's just like you talk about abundance.

It's nice to just be at that point to... -Yeah.

-...be able to share out.

-Exactly, and the seeds teach us that generosity, you know?

Oh, this is incredible, Becky.

So proud of you.

-We are being hosted by the Diné community to rematriate seeds out of the Carl Barnes collection.

They told us that it was in part of their prophecies that there would be a day to come when people from the east will be coming back and they will be bringing corn with them.

-We are the Diné seed relatives and we have been cared for by many seed keepers throughout the generations, including the Haudenosaunee.

And now we are returning home.

♪♪ ♪♪ -The seeds are guiding us towards each other.

So it's almost like they're leading the way.

-Thank you to, you know, Braiding the Sacred for the opportunity to have these seeds, you know, reintroduced back to their homelands.

So we're very excited.

Um, majority of the Navajo farmers are on this side.

You guys wanna raise your hands?

-I'm so happy to bring these seeds back.

I almost have a feeling of, like, letting a child go because I've touched every single one of those seeds.

You know, we've wiped them down.

We've sang to them, we've sat with them.

-This is my last one, lady.

-Okay.

You know, we never leave them alone.

Back home where we took care of them, those of us that put food away, that are growing our own food and that have our own food will be the survivors no matter what happens.

And so I feel like everything has come full circle.

And look, the farmers are ready.

They're all right here, ready to plant.

So people on the outside, non-indigenous people sometimes don't believe our stories.

They don't believe our power and they don't believe our prophecies and our dreams.

But we do.

And this table is -- is an example of that.

And all these people that have come from the east, this was meant to be.

Niawéha.

-[ Singing in global language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -The seeds do better when they grow on the land they are familiar with the most and they're surrounded by their own songs and their own language.

-[ Singing continues ] ♪♪ -This is the type of gathering that we had in mind when we purchased this property.

So this one is ready to plant.

We wanted to create a safe space for people to come and a safe space for our seeds to come home to.

♪♪ -All of us are here because our ancestors prayed that we would be here.

And our seeds still really need us to advocate for them more than ever.

-When we're planting today, those seeds are the result of somebody else seven generations ago before we were even born, that thought of us.

-[ Singing in global language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -We're counting on the younger generation to connect with us and to carry us forward.

-[ Singing continues ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪